Budget: £400 (Absolute max of £450) Main uses of intended build: internet, Microsoft Office, media storage, main household music player, media storage and photo viewing. If possible, I may end up playing Football Manager and Starters Orders but not fussed on this. Parts required: Everything Previous build information (list details of parts): None Monitor resolution: 1080p Storage requirements: 2TB will you be overclocking: no Any motherboard requirements (no. of USB, Xfire/SLI, fan headers): Would like an internal card reader if possible and a minimum of 4 USB ports. Extra information about desired system: I want something small and preferably stylish as this will be on view in my living room (red would be good lol but not too fussed lol), something that could handle listening to some tunes whilst I typed a few letters, sorted a few photos etc. without having to close things down if you know what I mean. Cheers
Here's what I've come up with so far. Really struggling with the PSU as I can't tell if they'll fit in the selected case... Case: X-Case X301 (Black/Red) - £40 Processor: Intel Celeron G530 2.4GHz - £45 Mobo: ASRock Z77 Pro4-M Intel Z77 - £80 HDD: Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB - £100 DVD: Samsung SH-S222BB/RSMS 22x DVD+-RW - £20 Card Reader: Akasa USB 3.0 Memory Card Reader - £15 PSU: ... £50 Memory: Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB 1333MHz - £25 Total including roughly what I think I'll need to spend on a PSU is £375 so there is room in the budget if anyone can see any obvious improvement??? Thanks!
You could save some money by getting an H77 motherboard -- the Z77 is only worth it if you're overclocking, which I don't think that CPU supports. Maybe you could squeeze in a cheap SSD? That would be a huge improvement for the system disk over the Green HDD.
Buying a more higher end board to go with a G530 makes no sense at all, you could get a H61board for as little as £32 there is a G540 which is slightly better than the G530 and it can be had for just above £25 from novatech. Also you definately want an SSD in there they are just too cheap now to not consider it 64GB £29.99 - 128GB £49.99 though it does depend which you get, scan do have some good deals on ssds from time to time also its worth checking the 'today only' stuff too
Thanks for the replies I'll change the motherboard to the following... ASRock H77M which is about £55 to £60ish, it's the cheapest I can find that still has SATA III available. How much difference would an SSD system drive actually make to me and what's the smallest I'd need for OS and a few basic programs?? Cheers again!
A 64gb ssd should be fine for a boot drive and you really do notice the speed increase, so i highly recommend one
I think I'm gonna give the SSD a miss at the moment, the case I like has room for one optical drive and two HDD drives or one HDD and one card reader, I really don't want to have to get an external card reader! Updated specs after more research: Case: X-Case X301 - £40 CPU: Intel Pentium G840 2.8GHz - £50 Mobo: MSI B75MA-P45 - £50 HDD: Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB - £100 DVD: Samsung SH-S222BB/RSMS 22x DVD+-RW - £20 Card: Akasa USB 3.0 Memory card reader - £15 PSU: 300w Be Quiet BN133 SFX - £40 RAM: Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB 1333MHz - £25 Total cost so far: £340 Anywhere I can improve further??? Thanks
Why your HDD is costing £100? when you can pick one up for about £80.. so you might consider a SSD? 60gb for about £30?
Haven't researched prices fully yet lol, just using the first prices that pop up in google shopping for now! I think I'll get the WD Caviar Green, thanks! I'd like a SSD but I really need that internal card reader and there is only space for one or the other...
Ssd's are quite small, they have no moving parts so you can pretty much Velcro it anywhere. It doesn't need a drive bay
This. My SSD isn't attached to anything except the cables. SSDs are really small (2.5" laptop HDD size but half the thickness) and light and don't vibrate the slightest.
In that case, it's looking like I'm going to have £60 to £80 left over, which SSD would be recommended?? If I can get 128Gb for that, I'd rather do that than get a slightly better performing 60GB...
I'll also agree with the SSD's can be placed anywhere as both of mine are velcro'd out of sight too the back of the motherboard tray which means I still have two HDD bays free for mechanical drives (actually three bays but my RAM intrudes on power/SATA cabling for a third drive). I bought some velcro discs from Halfords for a couple of pounds which does the job nicely. I've got a couple of Crucial M4 256GB's so I'd recommend the 128GB version without question although the write performance is a little lower on M4 128GB but you probably won't notice in day-to-day tasks (I used to have a Crucial C300 128GB and in real world tasks I can't really tell the difference). Samsung 830's are worth a look and are very popular around here (probably because they are extremely fast and price is near enough in line with the M4's!). Crucial M4 128GB - £79.34 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/128g...-flash-read-500mb-s-write-175mb-s-new-version Samsung 830 128GB - £82.94 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/128g...basic-kit-sata-iii-read-520mb-s-write-320mb-s
